For me? Easy. It’s seared into my brain during an attempt to knockout a 4K saddlesore.

I was on a mountain at 2:30 AM, somewhere near the VT/NH/Canada border: near lake Seymour in VT- it was Pitch black. Zero cars. Zero noise. Just me, my bike… and a whole lot of “why does it feel like a horror movie out here?”

I come around a bend and hit a stretch of road construction — except there were no construction workers, no equipment running, nothing. Just a half-milled road, loose gravel, and dew settling in thick enough to feel it in your bones. So I roll up to one of those portable pop-up traffic lights, the kind that look like they came out of a dystopian movie.

It’s red. I stop.

And suddenly it’s dead silent except for the tick… tick… tick of the signal machine. No cars in sight. No houses. No movement. Just darkness and the sound of my own breathing inside my helmet.

Five minutes.

Seven minutes.

Still red.

And that’s when your brain starts doing its thing. What if this light never changes? What if a moose comes out? What if someone’s watching me? Why can I feel eyes on me? Is this where Bigfoot clocks in for his shift?

I finally zipped up my heated liner, said “screw it,” and rolled through the red into the pitch black, hoping the road wasn’t completely washed out on the other side.

Made it through.

But that moment? Sitting alone on a mountain at 2:30 AM with nothing but a malfunctioning traffic light and the feeling that the woods were staring back at me…

Yeah. That one’s permanent.